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ladybusiness2024 is a wrap!
It was an election year and a year where I spent quite a few months in an awful funk during the summer. I'm grateful that I read anything at all. I didn't set any goals for myself and that was the correct decision. I haven't been setting reading goals since 2019, because *gestures to world*. However, the permission to not have any reading goals at all allowed me to deprioritize long form engagement and critique. My attention span is shorter, it's harder to focus, and engaging critically—about anything that's not Robert Rules of Order—has felt like something I don't have the capacity for any longer. Most of my books this year were rereads. I enjoy revisiting stories I love, but I also feel a little stagnant as I watch bookish conversation whiz past me. I don't need to read 150 books a year and be on top of all the Big Book Buzz chatter, but it would be nice to at least be able to take part a few times. I'm changing things up in 2025!
Again, a huge chunk of these were rereads: the Murderbot series (twice), the Finder series (so I could read Ghostdrift, the last book in the series), the Divide series (so I could read The Relentless Legion, which I read half of and had to pause for Election Reasons). I also reread Winter's Orbit before I read Ocean's Echo for the first time because I thought they were more connected than they ended up being. There was a lot of comfort reading this year.
I did read things that were new to me and not rereads. My top five favorites out of the new work I read:
Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer — This wrapped up the Finder series, although if there had been one or two more books I wouldn't have said no. The way the book ended allows for, maybe, a spinoff series? I won't get my hopes up but if the author is inspired in the future I hope the publisher throws wads of cash at her. It was the perfect endcap to a delightful series, that dealt with complicated topics like power, family, and friendship, but still told a very fun adventure. It was exactly what I wanted and for a finale. The series is eligible for the Hugo for Best Series! Everyone should consider it—four very readable books—as it would make me, specifically, very happy after a Garbage 2024.
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith — Clint Smith is a poet as well as a nonfiction author and the writing makes that clear from the outset. He travels to landmarks of chattel slavery and examines how those places fit in a historical context, whether the story they're telling is whole and true, and what the history of each of these places means for all of us. It's beautifully told and hard to describe but it absolutely deserved each of its accolades. I will be reading his poetry and I'm not a poetry person.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera — Fetter was raised by his mother to kill his father, a powerful religious leader, and the book follows Fetter as he attempts to take a different path. When I talked about this book before, I said I didn't know how to explain it because it really demands to be read as explanation instead. But it's a very challenging novel that has changed within me the longer I've thought about it. Now, for instance, what I remember about the book is the study of the Bright Doors and their mystery. It's easy to think the Bright Doors storyline is pointless beyond a plot device to move Fetter around, but I suspect there are a lot of thematic threads to tug out of their role in this story. In the story, the Bright Doors can one day be a door and then one day everything behind it is lost and it will no longer open. I've been thinking about that a lot when I think about history. How every choice we make closes a door we can no longer travel through. But it doesn't mean the things behind the door (in our past) are done influencing our world generally and us specifically. Anyway, I loved this book a lot. It's doing so much, and very well.
The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed — Varkal and Med’ariz are tangled in a forever war. Alefret, a Varkal citizen arrested as the leader of a pacifist movement and experimented on, is offered his freedom if he will infiltrate one of the last floating Med’ariz cities and foment revolution among the citizens to weaken them. Choice is critical to this story and I found all the different ways that Alefret navigated his own choices—and at times the lack of them—to be fascinating. The thread of disability commentary throughout the book was gutting, too (in a good way). I'm stoked to read Mohamed's other work now.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark — Everyone said I would love it and surprise! I did! I'm pretty picky with historical fantasy, but Fatma is great and all the supporting characters and the ways their storylines intertwine with hers kept me hooked the whole time. I have the related short fiction in my pocket for a rainy day, because I know once I read it I'll never be able to read it for the first time again. This is a book that definitely feels like a comfort reread for when you want an adventure, but it needs to be familiar.
I plan to continue my Space Opera Reading Challenge. And although it wasn't a wild success, I enjoyed my 2021 Redux project! I might not have read A Master of Djinn without it. I'll be doing it again, although I'm going back to the year where all my reading problems started: 2020. More on this soon.
I also want to read all the Hugo fiction finalists this year. I haven't managed it in years. The good thing is, because I've helped with the Hugo Rec Sheet for so long, I'm getting great at predicting what's going to be on the Hugo ballot by looking at other awards and seeing the buzz, at least in the Novel/Novella categories. We'll see if the loss of Twitter and the shift of the SFF commentor class to Bluesky will change my skills in this area so maybe I can get ahead on the novel category and be able to focus more on novella/series.
It was an election year and a year where I spent quite a few months in an awful funk during the summer. I'm grateful that I read anything at all. I didn't set any goals for myself and that was the correct decision. I haven't been setting reading goals since 2019, because *gestures to world*. However, the permission to not have any reading goals at all allowed me to deprioritize long form engagement and critique. My attention span is shorter, it's harder to focus, and engaging critically—about anything that's not Robert Rules of Order—has felt like something I don't have the capacity for any longer. Most of my books this year were rereads. I enjoy revisiting stories I love, but I also feel a little stagnant as I watch bookish conversation whiz past me. I don't need to read 150 books a year and be on top of all the Big Book Buzz chatter, but it would be nice to at least be able to take part a few times. I'm changing things up in 2025!
2024 Reading
I read 29 books in 2024 and tracked absolutely nothing except my dates read in StoryGraph, so I don't have any fun charts. StoryGraph does gives you some built in stats if you're a Plus user, but I haven't dug into them in so long I have no idea what's there anymore. I did see that it took me 19 days to read Ocean's Godori, and that had nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my ability to focus. It was a solid space opera! My focus is garbage!Again, a huge chunk of these were rereads: the Murderbot series (twice), the Finder series (so I could read Ghostdrift, the last book in the series), the Divide series (so I could read The Relentless Legion, which I read half of and had to pause for Election Reasons). I also reread Winter's Orbit before I read Ocean's Echo for the first time because I thought they were more connected than they ended up being. There was a lot of comfort reading this year.
I did read things that were new to me and not rereads. My top five favorites out of the new work I read:
Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer — This wrapped up the Finder series, although if there had been one or two more books I wouldn't have said no. The way the book ended allows for, maybe, a spinoff series? I won't get my hopes up but if the author is inspired in the future I hope the publisher throws wads of cash at her. It was the perfect endcap to a delightful series, that dealt with complicated topics like power, family, and friendship, but still told a very fun adventure. It was exactly what I wanted and for a finale. The series is eligible for the Hugo for Best Series! Everyone should consider it—four very readable books—as it would make me, specifically, very happy after a Garbage 2024.
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith — Clint Smith is a poet as well as a nonfiction author and the writing makes that clear from the outset. He travels to landmarks of chattel slavery and examines how those places fit in a historical context, whether the story they're telling is whole and true, and what the history of each of these places means for all of us. It's beautifully told and hard to describe but it absolutely deserved each of its accolades. I will be reading his poetry and I'm not a poetry person.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera — Fetter was raised by his mother to kill his father, a powerful religious leader, and the book follows Fetter as he attempts to take a different path. When I talked about this book before, I said I didn't know how to explain it because it really demands to be read as explanation instead. But it's a very challenging novel that has changed within me the longer I've thought about it. Now, for instance, what I remember about the book is the study of the Bright Doors and their mystery. It's easy to think the Bright Doors storyline is pointless beyond a plot device to move Fetter around, but I suspect there are a lot of thematic threads to tug out of their role in this story. In the story, the Bright Doors can one day be a door and then one day everything behind it is lost and it will no longer open. I've been thinking about that a lot when I think about history. How every choice we make closes a door we can no longer travel through. But it doesn't mean the things behind the door (in our past) are done influencing our world generally and us specifically. Anyway, I loved this book a lot. It's doing so much, and very well.
The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed — Varkal and Med’ariz are tangled in a forever war. Alefret, a Varkal citizen arrested as the leader of a pacifist movement and experimented on, is offered his freedom if he will infiltrate one of the last floating Med’ariz cities and foment revolution among the citizens to weaken them. Choice is critical to this story and I found all the different ways that Alefret navigated his own choices—and at times the lack of them—to be fascinating. The thread of disability commentary throughout the book was gutting, too (in a good way). I'm stoked to read Mohamed's other work now.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark — Everyone said I would love it and surprise! I did! I'm pretty picky with historical fantasy, but Fatma is great and all the supporting characters and the ways their storylines intertwine with hers kept me hooked the whole time. I have the related short fiction in my pocket for a rainy day, because I know once I read it I'll never be able to read it for the first time again. This is a book that definitely feels like a comfort reread for when you want an adventure, but it needs to be familiar.
Changes in 2025
I'm finally setting myself a reading goal: 45 books in 2025 that are brand new to me. I've been hovering in the 20 – 40 space for years and relying on rereads to make that number. I need to challenge myself to get out of it. I want to leave space for rereads when I need to put on an audiobook and go for a walk and let my brain relax. We're not doing restriction in this house! I'm also adding on a nonfiction book goal because I want to exercise my brain again. I'm doing that in the form of a nonfiction book club on Discord, called Special Topics! So, at the very least I will read 13 nonfiction books, which is how many books the club will cover in a year. Our first books are How to Read Now and A People's History of the United States (the latter is the January – July pick and we're reading/discussing in sections).I plan to continue my Space Opera Reading Challenge. And although it wasn't a wild success, I enjoyed my 2021 Redux project! I might not have read A Master of Djinn without it. I'll be doing it again, although I'm going back to the year where all my reading problems started: 2020. More on this soon.
I also want to read all the Hugo fiction finalists this year. I haven't managed it in years. The good thing is, because I've helped with the Hugo Rec Sheet for so long, I'm getting great at predicting what's going to be on the Hugo ballot by looking at other awards and seeing the buzz, at least in the Novel/Novella categories. We'll see if the loss of Twitter and the shift of the SFF commentor class to Bluesky will change my skills in this area so maybe I can get ahead on the novel category and be able to focus more on novella/series.
